Business Management - Industry Trends

GPS to recreate entire worldwide infrastructure and provide all publishing services WASHINGTON DC—October 23, 2006—Following a rigorous government selection process, the Department of State awarded a 10-year contract worth $164 million to its revamped in-house printing and publishing organization, Global Publishing Solutions (GPS). The award decision culminated an 18-month public-private competition, comparing the government’s ability to provide a commercial service with the private sector bidders’ ability to accomplish the same service. Competitive Sourcing is one of the five Government-wide initiatives of the President’s Management Agenda, which is the Administration’s strategy for improving the management and performance of the Federal government. The competition encompassed 199 positions, including

ANN ARBOR, MI—Suitable funding is required to drive development of printed electronics into viable commercial solutions. With massive applicational opportunities there will be many successes. For the first time IDTechEx is holding a venture capitalist forum at its Printed Electronics USA conference in Phoenix on December 5-6, 2006 to bring together venture capitalists with companies seeking investment. Companies involved or intending to be involved in any part of the printed and thin film electronics value chain and seeking funding can pitch their uniques and propositions to the panel of invited Venture Capitalists in a 10 minute presentation. If any member of the panel then

PARAMUS, NJ—10/12/2006—The NAPL 2006 State of the Industry Update: Preparing for a Slowdown explores how graphic communications companies can help prepare for the slowing in the economy that’s likely as we move toward 2007. Recently released by NAPL (www.napl.org), the trade association for excellence in graphic communications management, the State of the Industry Update explores how a slowing economy will affect printing company clients; how printers can gain a strong foothold with their customers, and how they can protect their already pressured bottom lines. “For every one percentage point slowdown in the gross domestic product—GDP—print sales drop by more than $1 billion,”

SEWICKLEY, PA—October 11, 2006—The trend for printing companies to expand their Internet-based services is growing rapidly. A recent survey by PIA/GATF and Printing Impressions highlighted the trend—of those respondents not yet offering a “web to print” solution,” 54% plan to introduce one in the next 12 months. The October 2006 survey of over 400 magazine subscribers also revealed that about 50% of the respondents already involved in such services are offering branded customer storefronts, compared to production portals (26%), and digital storefronts (18%). The addition of these services was not without considerable work—41% of respondents built their sites from scratch, rather than purchase software or

For most of the past ten years, one of the major trends in U.S. business has been the rise of globalization. Tom Friedmann, in his best seller book, The World is Flat, made the case that if you’re not global, you won’t survive. NPES members have long been active exporters: today we estimate that over seventy percent of them are involved in exporting to some extent. Twenty percent of our members strictly import to the US market although their parent companies are global in nature. So, roughly one tenth of our membership concentrate on the US market and have yet to explore the global

PHOENIX—During the leading conference on printed electronics (Printed Electronics USA 2006, December 5-6, 2006, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Phoenix), there will be a tour of the renowned display research center at Arizona State University. Its remarkable advances are nearer to commercialization than most realize, for example, the new flexible displays could be field tested as early as 2007. Electrophoretic These displays use electrophoretic inks made by conductive ink supplier E-Ink (Kent Displays is also a partner). They will be used in handsets initially and then be embedded into fabric so they can be integrated in military uniforms. These displays will provide soldiers with real-time mission

FOR THE second consecutive year, Visant Corp. nailed down the top spot in Book Business’ Top 30 Book Manufacturers list—produced by Printing Impressions’ sister publication and ranked by 2005 book manufacturing revenue—in what was certainly an up-and-down year for many book printers. The book manufacturing landscape continues to change, with paper prices on the rise while availability declines. Publishers are being more vigilant than ever in controlling their costs, while Asia’s impact on the market increases each year. In its annual look at the state of the industry, Book Business sought insights from executives at four of the companies on the list—four companies,

PRINTERS LOOKING to boost their bottom lines with digital printing, look no farther. Attendees at the general session “Profiting with Digital Print” at the upcoming PIA/GATF Variable Data and Personalization Conference will learn what industry profit leaders have done to maximize their digital printing investments and realize respectable returns. Last year, digital/toner-based printing grew at double the rate of traditional ink-on-paper printing. This session, led by Ronnie Davis, Ph.D., vice president and chief economist at PIA/GATF, will discuss details from recent economic data compiled by the association, a benchmark to compare a company’s efforts in achieving desired results. “Right now, toner-based/digital printing is

Last February, we ran a Google search to estimate the number of Adobe Acrobat PDF files that are available on the Internet. At the time, there were 315 million URLs that ended with the address “.pdf”. Just six months later, that same search identified 684 million of them. While this is not a perfect way of determining how many documents are on line, it is still quite informative. The popular use of the Internet may be just 11 years old, but this indicates that it’s still bulking up on its way to teenagerhood. What does this mean to the printing industry? While many of these documents

By Dr Peter Harrop IDTechEx Second generation printed electronics has arrived and its impact on society will be immense. A major new industry is born. Transparent solar cells will be on watches by year end and vast areas of printed flexible photovoltaics will be available within the next few years. Heliovolt promises a high efficiency silicon-free photovoltaic film in 2007. Polymer alternatives will have lower efficiency but often be lower in cost. Announcements have yet to be made but IDTechEx has identified several companies that will be commercialising polymer solar film in 2007. Light emitting moving colour displays, vehicle and room lighting on